PRESS RELEASE
Libertarianz
Economy

Report Confirms Libz View - Labour Choking Economic Freedom in NZ

“The grip of Labour’s fingers around NZ’s economic throat have tightened,” claimed Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnton today. “Libertarianz has been saying this for years and it has been confirmed by the newly released 2006 Index of Economic Freedom report.”

“New Zealand has slipped from fifth to ninth on the index and this government seems determined to push us lower,” says Darnton. “Helen Clark has mused aloud about what a great example Sweden is. Sweden places 19th on the index – the very bottom of the ‘free’ category. Presumably we can expect our decline to continue under her guidance.”

“Unsurprisingly,” notes Darnton, “by far New Zealand’s worst performing area is ‘Fiscal Burden of Government’, i.e. the amount of money the government steals in taxes from its productive citizens. We rank 101st along with economic heavyweights Swaziland, Ghana, and Vietnam.”

“The most important thing to take from this survey is the direction in which New Zealand is headed. We’re still very lucky to live in one of the world’s freest countries, but it is a serious concern that the direction in which we're heading is one of less freedom, not more. We’ve already been overtaken in many areas by former Communist economies which are freeing themselves after decades of repression. Why do we feel the need to take the opposite tack?”

Details of the survey can be found at http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/

ENDS

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